Can I Hold Physical Silver In My IRA? – Beginners Guide

Are you thinking about adding physical silver to your retirement account?

You often hear about adding gold to your IRA but can I hold physical silver in my IRA? In recent years investors have been very inclined to invest in silver due to it’s massive upward potential.

Short answer: Yes. You can have physical gold in your IRA.

There is more to it though than to just buy some silver and put it in your IRA.

We will be discussing how it works to add physical silver to your IRA. What limitations you might have and how easy it is to do.

By the end of this post you will have enough knowledge to start the process of putting some of your retirement savings into physical silver.

Why should you have silver in your IRA?

Let’s quickly answer this question first.

Silver has been seen as money and a true store of wealth for thousands of years. Just like gold have. Silver have all of the great features that makes gold such an attractive investment.

It’s seen as a safe haven in rough economic times. When markets fail people tend to start purchasing precious metals in order to protect their wealth. If you think that the current system of debt is unsustainable and that you see rough economic times ahead then precious metals investing is the right thing for you.

Besides the safety and the hedge against inflation that both gold and silver gives you there is a huge potential for higher profits with silver.

Now why would I say that?

Almost all electronics have silver in them. Silver is a great electrical conductor which is why all your phones, computers, cameras, solar panels, and everything else you can think of have silver in them.

Because we create so many electronics each year there is a huge demand for silver and this demand just keeps getting bigger.

The supply of silver can not keep up to this increasing demand. There is only so much silver in the earth and we can’t create more than we can mine each year.

What usually happens to a product that there is a huge demand for but a limited supply of?

The price goes up!

When a lot of people want something and there is not a lot of that product they will bid the price through the roof. This will, and is, happening to silver today.

If you think we will create more electronics in the future than we do today then you think that the demand for silver will increase.

Unfortunately most retirement accounts only allow paper silver and you should stay away from that.

Most retirement accounts today like a 401(k), 403(b), 457(b), TSP and traditional IRAs do not allow you to have physical silver in your retirement account. The majority of people have one of these IRA account types.

These retirement accounts allow you to hold paper silver instead. This is a huge difference though because paper silver is traded just like a stock and it doesn’t give you all the security that you’re after when investing in physical precious metals.

What we mean with paper silver is often an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF). An example of this would be the SLV that’s trading on the COMEX platform.

Basically this means that you buy ”stock” in a fund (SLV in this example) that supposedly store physical silver in their vaults. Then whenever you want you can take physical delivery of silver by selling your ”stock” in the fund.

It has been proven over and over again that these funds don’t have enough physical silver in their vaults to cover all the stock they sell. If something would happen to the silver market and a lot of investors in these funds want to take physical delivery of their silver there just aren’t enough in the vaults.

A lot of people that thought they owned silver will be standing without any.

How can I hold physical silver in my IRA then?

Like we were talking about above you can’t have physical silver in any of the popular IRAs. What you need to do is to start a self-directed IRA.

A self-directed IRA works pretty much the same as all the other IRAs when it comes to taxes and other rules. There is one major thing that is different though.

With a self-directed IRA more trust is put on you to decide what investments you want to make for your retirement account. On all the regular IRAs you’re limited to invest in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

With a self-directed IRA you can invest in other vehicles such as real-estate, gold, silver, oil, horses and intellectual property just to name a few.

This allows you to better diversify your retirement account. The reason you have to start a new account in order to do these investments is to give your consent that you are going to invest in non-conventional investment vehicles.

Once you have opened up your new self-directed IRA account you can transfer all, or part, of the funds in your current IRA. As soon as the funds are transferred you can purchase physical silver with it.

Does this sound complicated to you? Good, because it is. To do this yourself would not be an easy task and there are ways that you can save a lot of money in taxes if you do it correctly.

The best thing is that this is nothing that you have to do yourself. A good precious metals dealer will help you with all the paper works and guide you through the process.

After we have talked about what silver you can add to your IRA I will show you a way how you can get the process started today without doing anything yourself. You will have to sign two papers and then pick metals. Obviously you will be guided through the whole process with an individual support person.

Does that sound interesting? Great, let’s see what type of silver is allowed in your IRA first.

What type of silver bullion can I have in my IRA?

The silver that you are allowed to own in your self-directed IRA has to fulfill two requirements:

It must be official currency of a recognized public entity.

The silver must be of at least 0.995 percent purity.

What this means in easier terms is that the silver must come from some type of government entity and has to be viewed as legal tender.

American Silver Eagle Coin – Allowed in your self-directed IRA

The purity must be of at least 99.5% meaning that the bullion bar or coin has to contain that much silver and not be a mix of a lot of other metals.

Some example of silver coins and bullion that you can own in your self-directed IRA are:

American Silver Eagle Coins

Canadian Silver Maple Leaf Coins

Australian Silver Kookaburra coins

Chinese Silver Panda coins

Austrian Silver Philharmonic Coins

Mexican Libertad coins

Silver Bars and Rounds that are produced by an approved refinery or national government mint.

Do not fall for this common scam!

A common scam that a lot of people fall for when they are adding precious metals to their retirement savings is to buy rare collector coins, often called numismatic coins.

There are dealers out there that try to sell you these ”rare” coins. The only reason why is because they can add a big markup to the price.

I have heard a lot of horror stories of people thinking that they bought valuable rare coins but it turned out to be completely false. That way they paid maybe double the price for their silver.

How to get the process started today by almost doing nothing yourself.

As we were talking about before you should not do all of the paper work yourself if you’re not 100% sure about what you’re doing. And even then, why not let someone else do the heavy lifting for you?

I have been reviewing precious metals IRA companies for a while now and when it comes to helping people to add precious metals in their retirement savings account there is no one like Regal Assets.

Regal Assets have been in the precious metals business since 2003 and has received 0 complaints since then!

This is very unusual and when you look at all the other companies they have some good and some bad reviews. Try to search the Internet for yourself and you will see that there is only good reviews for Regal Assets.

They have also been featured on a lot of big networks like Reuters, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, Smart Money and a lot of other ones.

What sold me, and a lot of other reviewers, on Regal Assets is the fact that their support staff isn’t pushy at all. They truly try to help you and understand that this is a big decision for you.

You can call them up and get answers to all of your questions without having to buy anything. If you do decide to follow through with adding precious metals to your IRA they will do all the paper work for you and guide you all the way.

You will get a personal support staff member that will update you on every thing and someone that you can call whenever you want.

To get started today I would recommend that you read the full review of Regal Assets or download their free precious metals rollover guide to learn more about how it works. Or why not both?

Please leave any questions that you have in the comment section below and I will do my best to help you.

I hope we have answered the question: can I gold physical silver in my IRA and that you now know a lot more about adding precious metals to your IRA.

Marcus

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10 Comments

This is really good advice. I don’t trust the stock market one bit. It’s so volatile and it’s smart to diversify.

Your information is really in depth and I learned a lot from this post. It was interesting to find out the dealers overprice the coins. I have to admit, I have looked eBay over a couple of times looking for a good deal!

It’s always nice to hear when people learned a lot from your posts. Thanks a lot.

Yes the precious metals market is very competitive which makes it hard for dealers to take any big profits. If they instead sell you these collector coins they can raise the price and therefore make a bigger profit.

Because it’s hard to say what a ”rare” coin is worth if you’re not an expert it’s super easy to get scammed. Stay away from collectors coins and buy bullion.

Sometimes you can find a great deal on eBay for some gold bullion. Just make sure that you are actually buying gold and that there is some way to see if it’s real. Maybe a serial number or a stamp or something.

I really like this article. I work in finance so I follow gold, silver and the USD very, very closely. However I am afraid even with my financial markets background I have absolutely no idea what an IRA is? What is an IRA?
I expect gold and therefore silver to continue to rally. There is a big piece of economic data coming this Friday which could be a game changer for all commodities but especially precious metals, and that is the release of the non farm payroll figure in the US. This will have big ramifications for a September/ December rate hike in the US.

An IRA is a way for american citizens to invest for their retirement on pre-tax dollars. Say that you can add maybe $500 a month to an IRA account. Then that $500 will not be taxed. Often your employer will match the amount that you put in.

We have so much debt in the world today that we wouldn’t even make it with interest rates at 2%. The economic data coming out should show a bigger effect on precious metals but they don’t.

All the data coming out from the US shows that they are in a recession. Unfortunately the price of gold and silver are not based on supply/demand of the actual physical metal anymore. It’s supply and demand of futures contracts on the stock exchanges.

A lot of banks have been caught and admitted to manipulating the price of precious metals.

Thanks for the great comment. Please have a look at some of my other articles. Would love to hear what you have to say.

Very informative article. I have been thinking about adding gold or silver for a long time to my retirement savings. Actually didn’t even know that you could have silver in your retirement account so thanks.

What’s the difference between having your precious metals in an IRA compared to just go out and buy gold or silver and hold it yourself as a personal retirement account?

Glad that you found out that you can add silver to your retirement account as well now. It’s a great way to have both gold and silver in your retirement account.

The biggest difference is that you are allowed to buy gold and silver with pre-tax dollars in an IRA. If you buy the gold and silver yourself you first get taxed on your income. And then with the money that is left over you can go and buy gold and silver.

With an IRA you can buy gold and silver and not be taxed at that money. You should read though the gold IRA rules to see some more differences.

The man and words in the photo at the top portray the subject so well.
Thank you for the valuable information you have brought out. You have opened my eyes to other business ventures which I would love to do in future.
This article will surely help many people because many don’t know how and if it is possible to you can have physical gold in your IRA.
You have introduced Regal Assets that will help for anyone who wants to deal in the precious metals merchandise into their retirement savings accounts.
Your articles are helpful, thank you.

Wow, that’s a great initial question. Why add this to your IRA? The old man will really have ponder over that one. Seems great for hedging and gives a good alternative option for people who have 401k’s who want to convert those to physical assets. Thanks for the great recommendation of that company.